(9AM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)
Cross posted at Dkos http://www.dailykos.com/story/…
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Two nights ago, President Obama said this in his Oval Office speech:
Now, as we approach our 10th year of combat in Afghanistan, there are those who are understandably asking tough questions about our mission there. (emphasis added)
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And recently, Sen. Dick Durbin had this to say about Afghanistan:
Durbin, who voted against the Iraq war but for the Afghanistan war, said the consequences of combat in Afghanistan, particularly growing numbers of wounded and disabled veterans, “weigh dearly on me.” He added that Americans must continue to ask not only what the US has achieved in Afghanistan but also “how will it end, when will it end, and at what cost.” (emphasis added)
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Neither Obama nor Durbin described exactly who is asking questions about Afghanistan, or exactly what questions are being asked and what answers are being given.
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If the mainstream media are asking tough questions to their faces and on the record of either Barack Obama or Dick Durbin (or of ANY of our elected leaders) about their war in Afghanistan, then I wish someone would give me a link, ’cause I’m coming up with nothing.
I’m no professional journalist. I’m just the dad of a service member who has had one deployment to Iraq and one to Afghanistan. And, I’m sick of constant, endless war based on specious reasons. If the paid professional journalists won’t ask elected officials the tough questions, it looks as if it’s up to ordinary citizens to do it.
I can sure think of some questions to ask my government. I’d like to ask Sen. Durbin some questions about Afghanistan in person. Since the MSM isn’t doing it, then I’ll step up to the mound, and I’d appreciate it if Sen. Durbin would step up to the plate.
I diaried about four of these topics recently. Best I can tell, what the U.S. government is doing in Afghanistan is an enormous, very bizarre and deadly experiment which history has warned is the same as lethal quicksand. And, as the world’s greatest exporter of constant, endless war, the U.S. Military Industrial Congressional Complex is raking in enormous profits.
I don’t seek confrontation. I’d like dialogue, and back where I grew up, dialogue means conversation on a two way street. Dialogue does NOT mean evasion, and if evasion occurs, I’ll bring discussion back to the topic…you can count on that. Big shot journalists can give out free passes for evasive responses, but I sure won’t.
Of course, what I seek is exactly what politicans fear, in my own experience in this world. Politicans are frightened of questions which cut through the huff-and-puff. They dread being asked questions which pierce their inability to account for themselves and their actions, or which hold them to account.
Isn’t it odd, when you think about it? We’re spending hundreds of billions of borrowed dollars and the lives of our soldiers, yet our elected leaders don’t want to talk about what is in their heads about the whole thing? and don’t want to face some simple yet serious questions?
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So, here’s my next topic for Sen. Durbin about Afghanistan:
If the growing number of wounded and disabled veterans is weighing on him, then what effective actions is he taking to stop creating wounded and disabled veterans? What effective actions is he taking, as a leader in a constitutional branch of goverernment, to end these foreign deployments? Is he doing nothing? or something? If it’s something, what is it?
Shoveling more and more money to fund this apparent governmental-corporate addiction to war is not getting our troops home, is it? It’s just creating more WIAs and KIAs, and continuing the addiction. And it’s, first of all, our troops and their families who are paying the price and bearing the burden for the addiction.
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So, I agree with President Obama and Sen. Durbin. Americans should be asking tough questions. I’m ready to ask ’em. Read the other questions here. Elected officials really ought to look us military families who OPPOSE these needless deployments in the face and talk with us.
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This is another live blog from the front porch at Sen. Dick Durbin’s office in Springfield, Illinois, in the Lincoln Home National Historic Site. It’s a beautiful little park full of historic Lincoln-era homes, owned by the Dept. of the Interior, and managed by the National Park Service. Sen. Durbin has rented office space in the George Shutt House since Sen. Durbin was a member of the House of Representatives. As is shown on the bottom of his Senate web site home page, the address is 525 S. 8th St, Springfield IL 62703. Thanks! to Sen. Durbin’s Springfield office staff who have always been gracious.
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I used to admire Durbin on the Iraq vote but it occurred to me he didn’t really lose anything on it. If it were a matter of his vote making a real difference – how would he have voted?
I’ve been watching these senators more closely – and not seeing much to admire.
Since Durbin’s “bleeding heart” comment and his work on our so-called health care bill – cold to him.
Of course, the details (as they say) are in the answers – and haven’t heard much other than usual nonsense.
Prayers for your son.
Author
and headed back to the ranch.
Thanks for your support, folks. It means quite a bit.
Nothing about this war, from the very beginning, has been anything but fake. No evidence was ever presented linking Osama Bin Laden to the 9/11 attacks. The Taliban offered to put him on trial in an international forum or even extradite him but war, war, war was on the agenda and that war had to happen fast. Why or how the war is supported by the Democrats I can only explain by corruption and fear.
The war has no solid basis, it has no cohesive strategy, no aim it’s just there for various factions to make money. If there is a point to the war it is to keep a large force near Iran, Pakistan, India and, above all, China. But you could do that without so much fighting.
As in Iraq the Afghan war is a chance for members of organized crime, contractors, agencies and the various branches of the armed services to all pursue different policies that often contradict each other. It is beyond madness yet it is a sacred almost “holy’ war that no mainstream politician will come even close to telling the truth about. Even the MSM has bee pretty skeptical of the war but it never translates into anything in Washington.
and posturing have replaced all real antiwar dialog now that it’s Democrat’s who are pumping the lies and propaganda and expanding these wars. The Democratic faithful now say torture and Gitmo are necessary because we must not look weak in the face of the dreaded evil that threatens us. We have always been at war with Eurasia or whoever ‘threatens’ our national interest’s. The media still does show us what we do to the people and places where we have killing grounds. However the war’s remain unpopular in the general populace. The loyalist’s are still hearing or seeing no evil unless it emanates from the lunatics on the right. All issues that make Obama look bad, are seen not in the light of what they are bad/immoral and destructive policy and agenda, but necessary cause we all should know that war is peace and the Republican’s and terrorists are much worse then the killing and torture.